Priest Takes Stand, Insists Sex Abuse Incidents Didn't Happen

By Jennie Rodriguez-Moore
Modesto Bee
March 20, 2012

http://www.modbee.com/2012/03/20/2122263/priest-insists-sex-abuse-incidents.html

Modesto Bee - (Brian K. Ramsay/The Modesto Bee) Father Michael Kelly of St. Joachim Church in Lockeford.

STOCKTON -- A Catholic priest accused of child sexual abuse testified in his civil trial for the first time Tuesday, fielding questions from the plaintiff's attorney.

Rev. Michael Kelly and the Diocese of Stockton are being sued by a former altar boy who served at Cathedral of the Annunciation under Kelly's direction during the mid-1980s.

Kelly, now pastor of St. Joachim Church in Lockeford, is accused of touching the boy as he baby-sat him, assaulting him in the priest's rectory and at a motel and raping him in a wooded area.

"That's what he said, and it never happened," Kelly said on the stand.

Kelly's interactions with children were unusual for a priest and are consistent with a pedophile's grooming behavior, according to plaintiff's attorney John Manly.

Kelly admitted to rough-housing, tickling and playing games with children.

"I was really disgusted at myself for that immaturity," Kelly said. "Certainly looking back at it now, it was very inappropriate."

But his intentions were never sexual, he said.

At Manly's request, Kelly demonstrated the games he played with children.

He sat on the courtroom floor and re-enacted how he hoisted a child above him and dropped the child in front of his body in a game he called "Superman."

"I certainly would not drop them on my crotch," Kelly firmly responded to accusations by Manly.

"We did it as kids. I did it with my nieces and nephews," Kelly said. "It was innocent."

Kelly, a native of Ireland, has served at various parishes in the Diocese of Stockton.

He was at Our Lady of Fatima in Modesto from 1973 to 1979 and helped begin the Modesto Youth Soccer Association in 1976. He spent a decade in Sonora beginning in 1987 and worked at St. Jude's in Ceres in 2003-04 before he was sent to Lockeford.

One parent had complained about Kelly's rough-housing in 1979 during his time at St. Bernard's Church in Tracy.

Kelly said he was told to refrain from rough-housing with children unless their parents were around.

But he continued that conduct, Manly said.

Manly pointed to changes in Kelly's recollections of encounters with the plaintiff.

Now 37 years old, the plaintiff alleges that Kelly first abused him in the family's home.

Recollection changed

When initially interviewed by diocese officials, Kelly said he did not recall baby-sitting the plaintiff. He later testified that he remembered it.

"Why did you say it's not the kind of thing you would easily forget?" Manly asked.

Kelly said he was too distracted by the sexual abuse claims to focus on remembering whether he had baby-sat.

"I was so horrifically, horrendously shocked," he said.

Kelly's testimony is scheduled to continue Wednesday.